HI h2oskineil thanks for the info it will help us to know where to avoid. Visited Sydney last year with the same intentions to find an area to settle. Spent 2 weeks constant driving around the suburbs with no luck. At least now I know where to concentrate our time. Many thanks.

Hi Steve thanks for your reply. Looking for an area roughly within 45mins of the city. Just now we live 35mins from Glasgow. At the moment we plan to drive to city for work but may switch to train if rush hour proves to be to time consuming. On the house front we are looking for a newish 4 bed detached home with pool and garages x2. Budget will be around $600-750,000 give or take a few $$$$. My son is 12 years and at high school and this will be key to the area we choose to settle.
We would love as all people would to live close to the beach but budget in mind we realise that this may not be possible.
We are travelling to Perth at the end of March to check out the suburbs and I was really looking to tap into other ex-pats experiences around Perth and get some idea of the good/bad North/South areas. If we are unable to find a house this trip then we will rent for a period once we arrive till we find somewhere suitable. Thanks again.
Graham.

Kingsley, Woodvale, Duncraig and Carine are all nice too, if anyone needs a place to rent from 1 May till 9 June , I have a 4 bedroom , 2 bathroom with tropical pool in kingsley PM me if interested!

Cheers
Ross

I would think with your sort of budget somewhere like Duncraig, possibly Hillary's or maybe Sorrento would be a pretty good starting points. I dont have Kids so cant help on the school situation.
As general rule of thumb for that sort of money you'll largely be looking to end up on the ocean side of the Mitchell Freeway. You can pretty much look on the map where the river meets the ocean down at Freo, head north following the coast on the left and the river on the right until it gets up to the city, then make your right boundary the mitchell freeway and keep running north with that to around the sort of Mindarie area, generally the commute from here would be under the 45min mark, obviously the further north you go generally the cheaper it gets, likewise the further inland. Suburbs joining the river section and those on the beach below about Scarborough generally will be over $750K for a 4x2, so you may want to scan past those.
Happy hunting!
Steve

For your sort of money you'd get a cracking house in Mindarie. Peter moyes school has a good rep although I'm guessing there would be a waiting list.

Ocean Reef or Iluka could be worth a look too

you would get something quite nice in Duncraig and Hillarys for that. You will just scrape into a nice place in Sorrento. High Schools are Duncraig and Carine depending on where you live. Try www.realestate.com.au and www.reiwa.com.au. You will then see what kind of property you will get for your money. Personally I wouldn't want to be any further north than Whitfords Avenue but that is a personal preference and I won't be sharing my reasons on here as they could cause a bit of a riot!!

Too many northerners ??

you wouldn't be too far from the truth, came here to escape my past!

Graham

I'd have to agree with Renth, with your budget you could get something to suit you in Mindarie, from here you can commute to the city by train in 35 mins and if you prefer the private school system you have the choice of Peter Moyes (Anglican) Quinns Baptist and Irene McCormack (Catholic). If your son is 12 then depending on when his birthday is he may still only be in primary school, all the above have primary and high school, or Mindarie primary is really good too. There may be waiting lists for the private schools but i know of people who have all recently managed to get pleces for their children so it would be worth checking out. The state high school is Clarkson which gets mixed reports depending on who you talk to, generally speaking those who's kids go there have goodthings to say about it, those who's kids go elsewhere will say only bad things about it, i'm not going to get into a debate about it here. Kinross middle school is the next nearest state school, it has a good reputation but will only accept students from within the school zone (Kinross and part of Currambine) in these areas $450-$550k will get you something nice.

Lynn

With regard to journey times don't forget to factor in walk/bus/cycle from home to station and same again from Perth station to office. My husband works on St Georges Terrace and we live in Sorrento. From door to door it takes him 40 minutes. Clarkson station to Perth station is 30 minutes train time + additional travelling from home/office.

If you want to consider a government secondary school, the best schools are reported to be Rossmoyne, Applecross and Willetton. These suburbs are south of the river and less than 30 minutes away from the city.

Rossmoyne has a good rep, but recently I was doing some research on property prices and noticed that Rossmoyne was one of the few suburbs in Perth where houses actually went down in value last year.

I wondered if it might have something to do with the school???

We're out here from Scotland on a temporary business visa and renting north of the river in Wembley Downs. It's a really nice area - reasonably close to the city, close to the beach, lots of families, but I think you'd be looking at at least $700,000 to buy here. The local State High School is Churchlands and it reputedly has a very good reputation. I think the catchment area for it is quite wide though, so maybe even if you lived a bit further out your kids could still attend it, although not sure about that.

Agree nice area but think you would struggle to get anything of any real size for under about $800K now, there are a few in need of major renovations (pulling down ) that might be slightly less, other than that Wembley Downs does allow Duplex blocks so some of these would be around the $500 - $600k mark but blocks will generally only be around the 500sqm mark so you'd want a decent new 2 storey to accomodate a 4x2 with pool and garage and that would prob whack another $200k on, which prob isnt worth it for a duplex.
Woodlands is another area to be considered some of the older houses without lake views would go for under $700K I think.
Hale school also has a very good reputation from what a few of our neighbours have said.

Many thanks everyone a great help. Steve I will take a look at the areas you and the others have recommended. This makes area/house hunting so much easier and now we may even get some time at the beach. Cheers all. Graham